Braganza, an historical Romance, in four volumes. These works obtained a very extensive circulation, and placed the author among the favorite standard novel-writers of the time. She now prosecuted her literary labors with great ardor, and published several other works with increasing reputation. Among her more popular productions may be enumerated, The Recluse of Norway, in four volumes; The Village of Mariendorpt, also in four volumes; and The Fast of St. Magdalen, in three volumes. She also published a volume of Ballads and Romances, with other poems.

Miss Porter's continued mental exertions proved too much for her bodily constitution, which was naturally rather delicate. For some years her health had been gradually on the decline, her sight especially being greatly impaired. She had just entered, with her sister, on a plan of relaxation, for the summer months, when she was suddenly cut down while partaking the kind hospitalities of a valued friend at Clifton.

In private life, Miss Porter was distinguished for the purity and elevation of her moral character. Her pleasing manners, the affability of her temper, and her extraordinary powers of conversation, won for her the esteem and affection of a large circle of acquaintance, by whom her departure will long be deeply deplored. With the public she has left a well-earned reputation, which will, we doubt not, transmit her name with honor to a remote futurity.

[From "The New Monthly Magazine, No. 142.”]

REV. DR. ADAM CLARKE.

Dr. Clarke was born in the county of Londonderry, Ireland, in the year 1763. He was early distinguished for the seriousness of his disposition. His boyhood was spent in acquiring the rudiments of a classical education, and in attending to the concerns of his father's farm. He was afterwards placed with Mr. Bennett, a large linen-manufacturer; but feeling more inclined to a life of literary pursuits and ministerial labors, he soon left that gentleman. He was introduced by letter to the Rev. John Wesley, and became a student of the school at Kingswood. Here his talents were soon recognised, and Mr. Wesley sent him out as an itinerant preacher at the age of 18. His youthful appearance gave an air of interest to his ministrations, which were attended by great numbers, who flocked to hear "the boy-preacher." We cannot follow him through the long course of his public labors: a few more general particulars may be added. His knowledge of languages (especially the Oriental) was extensive and profound. This is evinced (were other testimony wanting) in his Commentary on the Scriptures, a work, in some respects, surpassing all others of its kind. His library was rich in biblical MSS., exceeding, it is said, in extent and value, those in the Duke of Sussex's collection. The Duke,

we have heard, used frequently to visit Dr. Clarke in a friendly way, and even to take a pipe in his house, a privilege permitted by the Doctor (who was a resolute enemy to the use of tobacco) to no other man. Dr. Clarke was remarkable as a student and a father, for the perfect ease with which he could make a transition from one character to the other. The learned linguist, poring over some ancient scroll, and thence deducing matter for framing theories or confirming arguments, would be found, five minutes after, sporting in the midst of his children, with all the wild exuberance of boyish glee. The great charm, in fact, of his society, was his simplicity and playfulness of disposition, producing in him a character which united two seemingly opposite qualities, — that of comprehending the great without neglecting the little. He was made M. A. in 1805, and D. D. in 1806.

INTELLIGENCE.

[We have before us a considerable body of intelligence collected, most of which our limits compel us to omit. In making a selection from it, nothing seems to us more interesting to humanity than the following account of a new invention for alleviating the sufferings of disease. If it be found to answer the end proposed, facilities for its use will undoubtedly be devised. The account is taken from "The Penny Magazine." EDD.]

THE HYDROSTATIC BED FOR INVALIDS.

WE are favored by Dr. Arnott, the author of "The Elements of Physics," with an unpublished extract from the fifth edition of his work, now in the press. The invention here described promises to be such a real blessing to humanity, that we feel great pleasure in assisting to make known an improvement of such importance in the healing art; particularly as its value is not a matter of speculation, and as its benevolent author freely allows its use wherever the wants of his fellow-creatures require its application:

"It was to mitigate all, and entirely to prevent some, of the evils attendant on the necessity of remaining in a reclining posture, that the hydrostatic bed was contrived. It was first used under the following circumstances.

"A lady after her confinement, which occurred prematurely, and when her child had been for some time dead, passed through a combination and succession of low fever, jaundice, and slight phlegmasia dolens of one leg. In her state of extreme depression of strength and of sensibility, she rested too long in one posture, and the parts of the body on which she had rested all suffered a slough formed on the sacrum, another on the heel; and in the left hip, on which she had lain much, inflammation began, which terminated in abscess. These evils occurred while she was using preparations of bark, and other means, to invigorate the circulation, and while her ease and comfort were watched over by the affectionate assiduity of her mother, with numerous attendants. After the occurrence, she was placed upon the bed contrived for invalids by Mr. Earle, furnished for this case with pillows of down and of air of various sizes, and out of its mattress portions were cut opposite to the sloughing parts; and Mr. Earle himself soon

afforded his valuable aid. Such, however, was the reduction of the pow ers of life, that in spite of all endeavours, the mischief advanced, and about a week later, during one night, the chief slough on the back was much enlarged, another had formed near it, and a new abscess was produced in the right hip. An air-pillow had pressed where the sloughs appeared. The patient was at that time so weak that she generally fainted when her wounds were dressed; she was passing days and nights of uninterrupted suffering, and, as all known means seemed insufficient to relieve her, her life was in imminent danger.

me.

"Under these circumstances, the idea of the hydrostatic bed occurred to Even the pressure of an air-pillow had killed her flesh, and it was evident that persons in such a condition could not be saved unless they could be supported without sensible inequality of pressure. I then reflected, that the support of water to a floating body is so uniformly diffused, that every thousandth of an inch of the inferior surface has, as it were, its own separate liquid pillar, and no one part bears the load of its neighbour, that a person resting in a bath is nearly thus supported, - that this patient might be laid upon the surface of a bath over which a large sheet of the water-proof India-rubber cloth were previously thrown, she being rendered sufficiently buoyant by a soft mattress placed beneath her; - thus would she repose on the face of the water, like a swan on its plumage, without sensible pressure any where, and almost as if the weight of her body were annihilated. The pressure of the atmosphere on our bodies is of fifteen pounds per square inch of its surface, but, because uniformly diffused, is not felt. The pressure of a water-bath of depth to cover the body, is less than half a pound per inch, and is similarly unperceived. A bed such as then planned was immediately made. A trough of convenient length and breadth and a foot deep was lined with metal to make it watertight; it was about half filled with water, and over it was thrown a sheet of the India-rubber cloth as large as would be a complete lining to it if empty. Of this sheet the edges, touched with varnish to prevent the water creeping round by capillary attraction, were afterwards secured in a watertight manner all round to the upper border or top of the trough, shutting in the water as closely as if it had been in bottles, the only entrance left being through an opening at one corner, which could be perfectly closed. Upon this expanded dry sheet a suitable mattress was laid, and constituted a bed ready to receive its pillow and bed-clothes, and not distinguishable from a common bed but by its most surpassing softness or yielding. The bed was carried to the patient's house, and she was laid upon it; she was instantly relieved in a remarkable degree; sweet sleep came to her; she awoke refreshed; she passed the next night much better than usual; and on the following day, Mr. Earle found that all the sores had assumed a healthy appearance: the healing from that time went on rapidly, and no new sloughs were formed. When the patient was first laid upon the bed, her mother asked her where the down pillows, which she before had used, were to be placed; to which she answered, that she knew not, for that she felt no pain to direct; in fact, she needed them no more.

"Mr. Earle, within a few days of seeing the first one, had others made for patients in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and has been as much pleased with the results of them as of the first. The bed has since been introduced into St. George's Hospital by Mr. Keate, and elsewhere. The author has now seen enough of the effects of this bed to make him feel it a duty at once to publish a notice of it."

ART. I.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

[Compiled.]

·Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Ragpoot States of India. By Lieutenant-Colonel JAMES TOD. Vol. I. Royal 4to. Maps and Plates. pp. 836. London 1829. Price 41. 17s. 6d. Vol. II. pp. xxxii, 774. London. 1832.

THIS work contains information concerning an important part of India before little known to Europeans. It has given occasion to long articles in different English Reviews, and is spoken of in all as a work highly creditable to its author. We have seen no single notice of it, however, which affords a very satisfactory account of the book, or which would engage the attention of most readers. The following is a series of selections from the various articles concerning it, which is, perhaps, better adapted to interest the general reader than any one of them. Rajast'han or Ragpootana lies in the northwest part of Hindostan between the Jumna on the east and the Indus on the west. Of the knowledge which previously existed of this part of India, and of India in general, the following account is given in "The Edinburgh Review." "Till a very recent period, we really knew but little of India beyond the provinces of Bengal, rich indeed and productive, but in which the Hindu political and civil institutions are more broken down, and the character of the inhabitants, from ages of foreign servitude and oppression, more injured, than in any other portion of that great country. From these provinces, however, were our ideas of the Hindu laws and character taken, and most mischievous in many instances have been the practical consequences of acting on conclusions drawn from a too limited induction of facts. It is only since the beginning of the present century that our ideas on the subject have begun to take a wider range. The great extension of the Madras government by the successful wars against Tippoo Sultan, the enlargement of the Bombay government on the side of the Guzerat, and, finally the subjugation of the Mahratta country, and indeed we may say, of all India on the side of Bengal, accompanied by the residence of many able men, especially as political agents, in every direction, have given us a much more comprehensive knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, than we previously possessed, and showed us distinctly, what sometimes had been casually remarked before, that the uniformity of laws, manners, and character, which we had taken as the basis of our opinions and legislation, did not exist. Colonel Wilks did much to enlarge and correct our notions of the varied races in the south of India; Sir John Malcolm furnished us with most instructive and inter13 t

VOL. I. NO. II.

esting details of the countries between the Nerbudda and the Chumbal; Mr. Elphinstone had already made us familiar with all the countries from the Biah and the Indian desert to Tartary and Khorasan; while Captain Pottinger had laid open to our view the waste and barbarous country of the Balouches along the borders of Persia down to the Indus. In the centre of all these territories, however, that large extent of country which forms the Rajpoot states remained insulated, and was nearly the only considerable portion of India that was left undescribed. We still recollect the difficulty we experienced in following George Thomas in his singular and adventurous career in Upper India and among the Rajpoots, to cities and provinces known indeed by name, but of which, with the defective maps, and equally defective geography of the time, we were unable to trace the position. Colonel Tod has the merit of filling up this large blank, and, by completing our acquaintance with the geography as well as with the history of the west of India, has added it to the domain of science, and discharged some part of the great debt which our possessions and political situation in the East impose upon us in the eyes of the world. We have here a new country and a new people; for the little previously and inaccurately known of them was less calculated to satisfy than to excite curiosity."

The first volume of Colonel Tod's work" is chiefly occupied with the antiquities and religion of the Rajpoot tribes, the geography of the eastern part of the country, and the annals of Mewar, the principal of its political divisions. The second volume gives us the annals of all the rest of the Rajpoot states, with an interesting sketch of the western part of the country, including the great Indian desert as far as the valley of the Indus."

To each is annexed a Personal Narrative of the author's travels and experiences in the country. The whole is the result of twenty years' unremitting labor and observation; during which he was officially employed in the country, latterly as Political Agent from the British government to the Western Rajpoot States.

"When the progress of British influence," says the Quarterly Reviewer," brought us into contact with the very remarkable races, the Rajpoots, who inhabit the north-west of Hindostan, between the course of the Jumna and Malwa to the east and south, and the desert which reaches to the Indus on the west, our intercourse with this gallant feudal chivalry of India was entrusted to Colonel Tod. We have high authority for the extraordinary influence which he obtained over all the various tribes, and the strong personal attachment which was entertained towards him throughout the province. Many traits of this ardent feeling are struck out incidentally in the separate portions of the Personal Narrative, which form the close of each of these volumes, equally honorable to the high-spirited Rajpoots, and to the gener